1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is broadly concerned with improved fatty acid sanitizer compositions in both concentrate and diluted forms which include a relatively low-cost stabilizing component therein giving the compositions enhanced stability, particularly at low temperatures. More particularly, the invention is concerned with such concentrates and diluted solutions which include an effective amount of a weak acid selected from the group consisting of propionic, butyric and valeric acids and mixtures thereof; use of such stabilizing components at relatively moderate levels materially increases the room and low temperature stability of the compositions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A number of different sanitizing compositions have been proposed in the past for the control of potentially harmful microbial species such as gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, e.g., E. coli and S. aureus. For example, compositions of this type may be used in the dairy industry for sanitizing milk-handling equipment and lines. As can be appreciated, such equipment must be routinely cleaned and sanitized to avoid the buildup of bacteria thereon which would contaminate the milk product.
Representative and effectively equivalent prior sanitizing compositions have included iodine (U.S. Pat. No. 3,650,965), or fatty acids (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,867,300 and 4,404,040) as the primary bactericidal agents therein. Moreover, these compositions are generally sold to end users as concentrates, and are then diluted with a relatively large fraction of water to form final cleaning solutions.
A problem with certain of these prior compositions, and particularly the fatty acid-type sanitizers, stems from the fact that they have poor phase stability unless significant amounts of relatively expensive additives (e.g., citric acid) are employed. This in turn means that the cost of the sanitizers is increased, not in order to provide more effective germicidal activity, but simply to insure that the concentrates do not undergo phase separation at room or low temperatures.